His Best Acquisition. Tara Pammi

“Finish what you were going to say. People like you deserve what?”

      Clair’s jaw ached. She didn’t want to tell him. Why? Because she was ashamed? Still? If she wanted to get anywhere with the foundation, she had to conquer this sense of being second class once and for all.

      “Support,” she answered with a swell of defiance. “When there’s nowhere else to turn.” She wasn’t as confident inside as she acted. It had always been hard to believe she really deserved any such thing when no one else seemed to agree, but she deeply believed children like her deserved a caring home and opportunities to make a secure life for themselves. If she didn’t act as their voice, they wouldn’t have one, just as she hadn’t.

      “What kind of people are we talking about?” Aleksy asked. “Orphans?”

      “Yes.” It was incredibly hard to look him in the eye. Her stomach trembled as she braced herself for how the label would change his view of her.

      Aleksy had vaguely absorbed that she didn’t have family, but the information had only penetrated distantly. Now he sensed how deeply she felt her lack and was thrown off by her vulnerability. A pang struck him dead center of his chest so hard he wanted to rub it away.

      “How old were you when—?”

      “Four.” She hid her flinch with a shrug, steeling her spine. This was costing her, he could see it, but she said without inflection, “Car crash. I had a broken leg and a dislocated shoulder. They died instantly.”

      “Why does that make you so defensive?” He had an urge to take her in his arms, but that wasn’t who he was. He didn’t coddle, but he still found himself trying to reassure her. “Being an orphan isn’t a crime. I’m one.”

      “You lost both your parents? Not just your father?” Her somber blue eyes softened with empathy, threatening to pull things out of him he didn’t want to release. “What happened? How old were you?”

      He was instantly sorry he’d mentioned it. “Fourteen when I lost my father. My mother lived until I was twenty. I suppose I wasn’t technically orphaned.” He glanced away, deliberately not addressing how his father had died. “I’m only saying there’s no shame in not having parents who are still alive. It’s hardly something you can help.”

      The irony of his assurance twisted inside him. He suffered deep shame over his father’s death and the fact that he’d never been able to provide properly for his mother. He lived daily with the anguished guilt that even if his mother had survived to live as he did now, it wouldn’t have cured the broken heart that had been the real cause of her withering away.

      Suppressing the agonizing memories, he focused on Clair’s circumstance instead, observing, “Four years old is still young enough to be adopted.”

      Tendons rose in taut lines against her throat as she said with stunned hurt, “That wasn’t really in my control, was it?”

      He might as well have kicked a puppy. He wished he could take it back, but the damage was done. She was pulling herself inward, composing herself into the untouchable woman he had seen several times now. Her skin was incredibly thin, he realized. He’d bruised her without even knowing he could do so. The way she mentally distanced herself caused an unexpected gap of agitation to open beneath his feet.

      He moved forward, taking her arms in a light grip, as if he could prevent her retreat into herself.

      She stiffened and her hands came up to his chest. He read the same conflicting signals of resistance and subtle, sensual melting that he’d felt in her earlier in his apartment. She liked his touch but was trying to shield herself at the same time, something he understood all too well, but she didn’t have to fear him on this.

      “You’re right, of course,” he murmured, experimenting with a light massage up and down her arms. “I shouldn’t have said that. Where did you live, then? An orphanage?”

      “Yes.” He felt a quiver go through her, one she suppressed as she said with quiet dignity, “The home was the only real one I had. It was stable and I needed that after being in foster situations for the first few years. That’s why I’m trying to ensure that it has enough funding to stay open, but I don’t need the donation from Grigori. The amount you’ve promised is so much more than Victor offered that I can keep them going and actually support expansion. Tell Grigori whatever you like. I won’t bring it up again. I’ll just tell people we met in London and leave it at that.” She turned her face away, lips tight.

      He had dismissed her charity as a ruse when she first mentioned it, imagining that at best it was the illusion of a bleeding-heart idealist incapable of solving real problems, but the full impact of it being genuine continued to jar through him. She wasn’t a gold digger; she was a mother bear fighting to protect children.

      The knowledge sliced a fresh cut of ignominy through him, but he ignored it, too caught up in trying to understand her.

      “You might have given me some indication,” he admonished. “Why let me believe your motivations were shallow?”

      “What do you care what motivates me? This isn’t the sort of relationship where we talk about our scars, visible or otherwise, is it?” she challenged, pupils contracted with wounded pride.

      A knot of complex emotions pulled his gut tight.

      “No,” he agreed. His hands unconsciously tightened on her arms.

      “Good. Because I don’t want you in my h-head,” she said shakily, but he heard the underlying hurt.

      The constant rejection in her life had made her understandably wary of intimacy, Aleksy guessed, but he couldn’t stand that chilly shell she was trying to recover. She wasn’t just in his head; she was under his skin so deep he could barely breathe without feeling her. Physical intimacy was the salvation for both of them, he told himself.

      “How about your body?” he murmured, pulling her hips into a delicate crash against the erection that had rarely subsided since he’d met her. Sex seemed the only way to get past her shields, and he would use it, now, before she’d locked her barriers into place. “Do you want me inside you?”

      She started with surprise and drew a sharp breath, face flooding with a sexual blush. “I— Well, y-yes. I mean, that’s what we’ve agreed, isn’t it? Um.” Her words caught and faded into a husky tone of arousal. “Un—um, uncomplicated and…” She licked her lips nervously and the play of her tongue was almost a visceral stroke up his spine.

      Simple. Practical. Physical.

      He tried to hang on to the words as he backed her toward the divan, the need in him, once acknowledged and released, so intense his muscles began to shake. Every cell in his body ached for the pleasure she promised, but there was a primordial aspect to it that he refused to examine too closely. He wanted more from her than sexual accommodation. He wanted her to give herself to him because she wanted to, not for any orphaned children. He wanted her as ensnared by this wild passion as he was.

      He levered her slight body onto the cushions and lowered himself to cover her.

      Clair released a helpless whimper as Aleksy’s hot mouth touched the racing pulse in her throat. Her overwhelmed senses took in the painted ceiling and the music beyond the doors. Had he locked any of them? The back of the divan offered a bit of protection if someone walked in but not much.

      “Aleksy,” she choked, voice thick with the conflict of wanting him so instantly she was almost willing to risk discovery and holding back because she was upset. All her internal guards were shattered and in bad need of repair. She should wait until she had a better hold of herself, but he was strangely reassuring in the way he caged her beneath him without crushing her. The way he trailed his lips across her bare shoulder, pausing to drink in the scent of her skin.

      “I want everything you’ll give me.” The statement spurred a light-headed rush, one that nearly lifted her off the divan as he slid his finger under the diagonal edge of her bodice to reveal her breast.